Open Stories — Short Fiction by Hank Redding

In 1871 Wyoming Territory, a sheriff’s silence leads a town to complete a justice it will later correct but never undo. The Shadow on the Ridge is a restrained Western novella about law carried too efficiently, truth that arrives late, and the cost of waiting when power shifts.

On a bypassed stretch of highway, a woman keeps a small roadside motel open as the world steadily moves past it. Pressured by paperwork, timelines, and quiet incentives to close, she continues not out of defiance but habit, attention, and care. Six Rooms examines what remains when usefulness fades, and how presence itself becomes a form of resistance.

During Frontier Days in 1910 Wyoming, a quiet confrontation over a battered hat draws a line between what is taken and what is earned. Some Things Are Worn is a restrained Western about public pressure, accumulated loss, and the authority that comes from carrying something long enough.

Three deputies return. One does not. In a sheriff’s office at dusk, testimony narrows toward a version that can survive the ledger. A procedural Western about contradiction, consequence, and what remains unspoken.